How to get step daughter to move home

[stepparentinghell]

How can I convince my step daughter to move back to her mums.
I am literally at my wits end, this has caused me to start self harming again as has triggered my abandonment anxiety, my kids are stressed too as they feel left again.

Basically we don't live with my partner, we have always lived separately but will stay at each others houses. For 5 years this has worked.

6 weeks ago via daughter fell out with her mother and moved into his. Since then he doesn't stay, we don't stay at his, he doesn't come back for lunch breaks etc. my life and my kids life is upside down. My eldest feels it's just someone else leaving him again.

Stepdaughter basically is loving living with him because he gives her money for whatever she wants, beauty treatments, clothes. She is 12. She is a little shit at school and he doesn't care. She ripped all her acrylics nails off as he wouldn't replace one broken one and he's now talking about taking her to have them re done again. He works all the time she is always on her own; she was caught by me cooking with hot oil and using a plastic coliandee to take food out the oil. I went mad as I was worried for her safety but her mother and dad had w go at me. Instead of thinking their 12 year old is home alone all the time and playing with gas flakes and oil. She wanted a new phone so she has the new iPhone 15 pro, her mum apparently doesn't buy clothes for her so he's constantly buying them. This means now he complained even more to me about the money I have and her and how skint he is. I have come to stay at his tonight as his other daughter is here. And he's so focused on what else can he buy this 12 year old. He's given her his bank card for his seperate account so she always has money on her. She is staying because of what she gets out of him. His ex wife is more concerned with what I am doing and saying on fb etc. I am at my wits end. I just want our life back. Where when my kids were at their dads we could have time to ourselves etc. He has booked to come on holiday to Greece with me and my kids, he's never come abroad with us as his ex wouldn't let him buy passports. But this year he's decided he will come, I am now worried he will bail because the daughter will have to go back to her mothers for the 2 weeks. And again this lets my kids down! I am so bloody fed up with this all. It's like he just can't see what he's putting me through. We had our set routine and life and now it's duxked. He's even said that since she been staying even if she goes back he won't be staying at mine as much because he's now use to not being up earlier as my kids get up earlier. It's literally ruined. I have come upto bed at 8 because I am just fed up of watching it all tonight he's not even bothered to come up. But says I am the bad guy if I leave and he will tell everyone it's because his daughter moved in

Don’t be the woman who’s using sex to keep a part time man.

That ship has long sailed…

He's even said that since she been staying even if she goes back he won't be staying at mine as much because he's now use to not being up earlier as my kids get up earlier.
How is having a 'step dad' who feels like this in your DCs best interest? He has literally said a sleep in is worth seeing you and your DC less. He doesn't really see himself as a father figure or he wouldn't be thinking this. Its empty words. Yes they're going to hurt over it a lot if you finish things, but sooner or later they're going to be hurting over this situation again because he is your boyfriend and not the step father they want him to be. Letting things go on longer is just going to make it hurt them more. You're absolutely not doing what's best for your kids here. They need stability and he can't give that. They need adults that put them first and he can't and shouldn't put them ahead of his kids. You are your kids only real carer and parent and you are now self harming. Do you really think its best for your DC to have their mum in a relationship that is damaging her mental health to the point she's self harming?

Agree but no step parent is ever going to put them first if they have children of their own. My dh is an exceptional step parent to my children but even though he won't admit it, he puts his own first. He has nevertheless enriched my kids' lives considerably.

This all sounds very tit for tat. You’re essentially saying “Pah! He'll come crawling back”; he’s threatening to tell people (who?) that you’re leaving him because his daughter came to live with him, presumably with the intention of making you look bad; you’re posting passive aggressive comments on Facebook about it all… none of it sounds like a proper adult relationship.

You say your son is traumatised by him not being around, yet you’re still not living together after five years, so it doesn’t seem like he’s that permanent a fixture. Even if he was living with you, there’s never any guarantee a relationship will last. There’s no way you can force this man to stay in your life for the sake of a child that isn’t even his. I think it’s time to accept that this whole situation has turned toxic.

I'm almost certain it's the same poster as the style is the same

@goodytwoshoes123 there were two daughters wernt there, and the op's DS and one shared son.

Then the branded/supermarket own food divide, partners (fizzy) coke addiction and lizard pots of money with 50p's is for Peppa pig world and gifted holiday ls that specifically stated the step children weren't invited, so that was fine!

Ah you're bringing back the memories! I thought there were two sons who slept in a castle bed and she didn't like the stepdaughters who had nits and stole out of the little prince's snack drawer.

Like this poster, they used to not listen to anything anyone said and also used random "w"s

I am sat laughing at me phone at that, I really hope that poster was a troll, sadly I suspect it was real.

@NiceCutRoundDomeDormice
We probably never would live together until the kids have all left home. As many people have said before financially I could not afford to live with him, we both work and both run houses but his wages wouldn't cover the loss of my UC top up. And I wouldn't be able to pay for my car, basic needs for the kids etc. unless I was to come into some money and buy a house we could live in so I would have control of what is expected to be paid as we have very different views. Maybe when my kids hit secondary school and slightly more independent then we could move in as I could work more hours. But right now this situation has worked for 5 years with the set up

@StormingNorman tbh he is more invested than me, I have several times suggested we end the relationship, that it's not working because of our opinion and parenting differences. He is always the one who comes running back and begs to not end it

Why on earth would you be chatting shit to a 12 year old child about her Mother?!
All the adults in this situation - yourself, included - sound dreadful.
No wonder the 12 year old has issues.

@stepparentinghell - you are complaining because a man is spending time with his own child, and you want him to go back to the arrangement where he spent more time with your children than his own biological child? You think it is fair that his actual child should see less of him than your children do?

One of my friends had a step daughter problem like yours, and in the end I stopped talking to her because she was acting absolutely mental over a child and their dad doing the normal dad-child thing. Like you are. Please leave these people alone before you damage them.

Your poor kids! Their mum is having a breakdown and self harming because her partner's dd moved in with him? I read up until about line 5 of your OP and realized that it is you that is making your dc's "life a misery".

Your poor children. They don’t have a hope in hell with you as their mother. I hope this bloke runs a mile.

End this OP please because it sounds as if he has opinions on you and you aren’t about him abd this has just highlighted it sll

I feel sorry for his children and I feel sorry for yours.

I feel sorrier for yours though because you think a man should put them above his own children and it is all his fault they are traumatized when he doesn't.

You need to grow up OP and put your children first - and no that doesn't mean expecting some man you don't even live with to dump his own child so he can play daddies with them.

You actually sound unhinged....

Its like something out of Jeremy Kyle. Shocking.